halloween

Halloween is right up there next to Christmas morning in my book. It is every bit as magical. I don't really get into the scary parts of Halloween- the haunted houses, scary movies...I'm just a giant pansy and don't like being scared. But the chili cook-offs, staying up late the night before to put finishing details on costumes, running to the store again for just one more bag of candy, trick or treating, and the comradery of neighbors who open and close their doors probably 572 times in the same night and "ooo" and "aah" over each costume just the same- sign me up. I'm there. Front of the line waiving the holiday freak flag.

This is the third year we've gone with friends to their parents' awesome neighborhood for trick-or-treating, and for the third time it did not disappoint. Those people get me. I think I've told James every year we've been, "I want to settle down in a neighborhood like this..."

It's like the Disney movie Halloweentown reincarnate. People set up fire pits in their driveways, project Halloween movies on their garage doors and pass out popcorn, butter beer, caramel apples, hot chocolate...and of course heaps of candy. Some drive hayrides and bucket trains up an down the hilly streets for anyone who wants to hop on them. 

All of the giant heart-eyed emojis. All of them.

And since I live for this kind of holiday cheesiness, I make my family dress up in a coordinated costume. ;-) It's always a tricky balance though- between letting Jillian be something she wants to be and thinking of the coordinating characters to match what she picks that James would actually be willing to dress up as (he HATES Halloween- so bless his heart for doing it for the girls every year!). This year she wanted to be a princess- no surprise there- so I came up with the princess and the pea! Fortunately Olivia is small enough not to care she got stuck with the pea- but she is one cute little pea!

All of the pea costumes sold in stores are pea pods, but I wanted just a single pea (being true to the story). I ended up using this soccer ball costume tutorial and just changed the felt color to green for a pea! It was actually surprisingly easy and quick to put together, especially given my strong dislike for sewing projects.

Jillian used a princess dress up from Little Adventures (they make the comfiest and most durable dress up clothes!) and we made the princess hat together with paper and ribbon. 

To make the bed, I covered two pieces of cardboard with batting. Then I just got 1/4 yd pieces of fabric and taped it on each side on the back (I wanted to tape instead of glue so I can reuse the fabric pieces). The bed posts are just rolled up pieces of brown craft wrapper paper and the finial is a small foam ball from the Target dollar section wrapped in brown tissue paper. I hot glued ribbon on the back of each pieces so they could hang around our necks (which is why I opted for super light weight materials to put it together!)

It was a fun, sweet night!

Happy Halloween!